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Mordor: Depths of Dejenol is one game I had almost forgotten that I played it. But it’s likely that some nightmares when dreaming probably derived from the experience of falling into a pit to a deeper level on Mordor.

I can’t even pinpoint the years I played this game. The game was released in 1995, but I was playing the demo version of what seemed like a pre-1.0 version. It just feels like I played this game after Baldur’s Gate, which was around 1998-99. I can’t remember who introduced me to the game – it was probably Sungwoo(sp?) . I recall the person introducing me to the game, and me spending months trying to minmax the race and class characteristics based on specific higher level spell and weapon requirements, and just starting to pick up intro level teleportation type spells, then visited Sungwoo and saw him playing with very advanced characters, flying over pits, etc. Which was a pretty standard experience on every game he introduced me to. I actually don’t recall Sungwoo’s correct name – the older brother’s name started with S, younger started with J. I must have spent at least one year on this game. Did dad play it? Did brother?

The game’s help file extensively documented every aspect of the game, very much like wiki sites of these days. I think the scariest description of something that could go wrong was teleporting your party into a wall (rock tile). The thought of your body meshed into a wall, instantly dead, unable to see anything, was terrifying. This description was in the helpfile for lower level playthrough because it was part of the Morgue resurrection service – the resurrection service said “if you just died, it’s not that expensive. If you died by teleeporting into a wall, chances of success are low and also more expensive”

I’m surprised I could remember the name of the game. I could recall it was “Mordor something”, so after some googling was able to find references to the game. Probably easier to remember given the other mordor in middle earth.

The most incredible of all this is that the game is still selling for $15 – it ships a boxed set. And the binaries are still Windows 3.1 binaries – the updated demo file shows the developer did some touches in 2012 so that it can install up to Windows XP (although it’s unclear whether the actual game works on XP)

Hmm so this was actually an earlier DnD experience than Baldur’s Gate, although Mordor is more of a hack & slash..